The Internet has created the ability for many new types of virtual communities. Online communities exist for all sorts of reasons, including; product reviews, shared interests, socialization and the selling or auctioning of goods and services, to name a few. These services are currently centralized, server-based services. Being centralized (e.g., hosted on a single server or group of servers) makes it easy for the service to poll the activity level and generate reports or displays of the current community status and activity.
The Internet also facilitates the direct exchange of digital content (e.g., digital music, poetry, literature, film, pictures, games, etc.) between individuals. In this way, users may share the digital content of a common interest. These exchanges also create new opportunities to sell and trade digital content.
However, the exchange of digital content is typically performed anonymously. That is, the digital content is distributed multiple times from user to user without a means to determine the previous users of the digital content once it has been distributed.